Spring 2010
University Registration Guidelines Website: http://src.buffalo.edu
See above website - Registration for Undergraduate Students
November 16, 2009 - Department Force Registrations: Independent Studies
COL 226: Poetic Modernisms
COL 275: Childhood and Imagination
COL 302: Literary Theory: History
COL 303: Ecocriticism (Cancelled)
COL 311: Women in Tragedy
COL 226: POETIC MODERNISMS (top)
Instructor: Mr. James Kurt
Monday and Wednesday, 11:00 - 12:20 pm, Clemens 640
Registration No. 490660
This course explores modern American poetry of the first half of the 20th Century through concepts such as the “new,” possibility, and change. Seeking to reinvigorate the clichéd statement of Modernism, “make it new,” in order to allow it to once again to give dynamic meaning to the modernist movement in poetry, we will explore poetic calls for the destruction of history, plots to drastically reorder gender, and attempts to completely implode rational language as we know it. Poetic and philosophical texts will be examined.
COL 275: CHILDHOOD AND IMAGINATION
Instructor: Myrto Drizou
Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 - 12:20 pm, Clemens 640
Registration No. 220846
During childhood, children are initiated into the world and become part of society through family, religion and education; however, society can sometimes put pressure on the child’s creative energy. How possible is it for children to resist such pressure, and develop intuitive ways of relating to the world? Can they imagine another world that complements their surrounding one, and how is this imagined world linked to social reality?
This course will explore how imagination is the force that makes it possible for children to escape the conforming reality through developing their intuitive thirst for “the new”. We will see how imagination can help children experiment with the world around them, creating a different world from social reality. We will also ask ourselves whether the distance of such an imagined world from the existing one is irreconcilable, or whether this different reality can lead to a constructive critique and change of the existing social structures.
Primary texts will include:
Emile, or On Education Books II & IV (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce)
A Berlin Childhood around 1900 (Walter Benjamin)
Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson)
as well as selections from A Child’s Garden of Verses (Robert Louis Stevenson),
The Adventures of Peter Pan (J.M.Barrie), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn & The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain), and Remembrance of Things Past (Marcel Proust)
Course Requirements: Regular attendance and participation, a 15-minute presentation on one of the texts, a final paper of 8-10 pages.
COL 302: LITERARY THEORY: HISTORY (top)
Instructor: Megan MacDonald
Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30 - 10:50 am, 640 Clemens Hall
Registration No. 462951
Why do philosophers read poets, and why do poets read philosophy? This course will trace the history of this question, beginning with the "quarrel" between philosophy and poetry in antiquity and leading up to the contemporary conversations and polemics between the two disciplines. The course is an introduction to the history of criticism but is open to all students interested in exploring the fascinating and challenging intersections between the two main areas of the humanities: literature and philosophy. Reading literary and philosophical texts, we will discuss such questions as the nature of human existence, the problem of time, death, and finitude, the role of gender, as well as the differences and similarities between the imagination and reason, passion and logic, literary language and philosophical argumentation. In the first part of the course, we will examine convergences and differences between literary and philosophical texts in antiquity (Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Sophocles' tragedies), the Middle Ages (Boethius and Dante), the Enlightenment (Voltaire, Candide), and Romanticism (Schlegel, Philosophical Fragments, Hölderlin, poetry.) Rethinking the heritage of Greek culture and tragedy for the moderns, Nietzsche's influential study The Birth of the Tragedy will serve as the transition to the questions, which will characterize contemporary debates between philosophy and literature. After The Birth of Tragedy, we will read several essays by Heidegger and Irigaray, and a number of literary texts: short stories by Dinesen and Borges, excerpts from Joyce's Ulysses , and poetry by Gertrude Stein and Wislawa Szymborska. Requirements : presentation, participation in discussion, term paper.
COL 303: ECOCRITICISM (Cancelled)
Instructor: Jessica Goodnough
Monday and Wednesday, 9:30 - 10:50 am, 640 Clemens Hall
Registration No. 011934
COL 311: Women in Tragedy (top)
Instructor: Kalliopi Nikolopoulou
Monday and Wednesday, 5:00 – 6:20 pm, 215 Clemens Hall
Registration Number: 011605
The seminar focuses on the function of women in ancient tragic works. Along with the social, historical, and symbolic roles of women, we will explore some philosophical questions that the experience of femininity poses in the ancient world. How does sexual difference inflect tragic experience itself? How does the feminine as lover, mother, sister, citizen, or worshipper affect and become affected by strife and suffering—whether this is war, tyranny, betrayal, or the trials of revelation?
We will read four representative tragic works—namely, Medea, The Trojan Women, The Bacchae, and Antigone, as well as some theoretical writings on tragedy.
You will be expected to actively participate in the discussion as well as to complete in-class writing assignments and a final research paper.
COL : (top)
COL 499: INDEPENDENT STUDY (top)
Professor Shaun Irlam
Registration Number: 394872
1 thru 12 credit hours
COL 499: INDEPENDENT STUDY (top)
Professor Henry Sussman
Registration Number: 401856
1 thru 12 credit hours
Comparative Literature Degree Requirements (top)
The Undergraduate Minor (18 Credits)
- COL 301 and 302
- Up to five additional courses
- Two courses may be course you take toward your major
The Undergraduate Major (45 credits; varies)
All Comparative Literature Majors are self-designed and must be approved by the College of Arts and Sciences Special Major Advisor, as well as by two faculty advisors from the COL Department. If you are interested in designing a Comparative Literature Special Major, please consult the COL Director of Undergraduate Studies.
The M.A. (36 credits)
- 9 "intensive" (A) seminars
- 3 credits Masters Project Guidance (COL 598)
- Masters Project (approximately 35-75 pages)
- Minimum of 30 credit hours
- 30 Credits (10 courses) Intensive (A) Seminars
- Orals Examination (upon completion, students can apply for the M.A.)
- Dissertation (approximately 150-300 pages)
- Dissertation Defense
The above information is provided as a guide. Requirements may vary. Please see the Department Director of Graduate Studies, the Director of Undergraduate Studies, or your advisor for information tailored to your situation.
